A design process for a storage area network comprises determining host, network, and storage design components. Domain specific planning tools are available in various domains such as network planners, database query optimizers, storage capacity, and server capacity planners. The same type of underlying mathematical optimization algorithms can be used in each of these different domains (such as best-fit bin packing, linear programming, etc.); however, the input requirements, input constraints, and components of the cost model are different in each of these domains. Consequently, the requirements of plan generation for a storage area network are unique because this design space spans hosts, network and storage domains.
Conventional design tools for storage area networks typically output only a single integrated design across the host, network, and storage layers of the storage area network. Some conventional design tools for storage area networks require a system designer to select a pre-existing design template (cookie-cutter approach). These pre-packaged device templates guide the design process of the storage area network. However, selecting a pre-existing template can lead to over-provisioning. The pre-existing template does not allow optimization of a design for a particular implementation of a storage area network with respect to cost, physical space, power utilization, etc.
Conventional storage area network planning tools do not perform integrated planning across the different layers. That is, there are network planners that only provide multiple plans for only the network layer, or the storage planner that only provides multiple plans for the storage layer. These conventional planners do not consider inter-layer optimization issues.
When using conventional design tools for storage area networks, generating additional plans across the different layers of the storage area network leads to combinatorial explosion. For example, host planning generates four possible different alternatives, storage planning generates five independent planning alternatives, and network planning generates six other independent planning alternatives. Consequently, identifying an optimum solution requires evaluation of a total of 4*5*6 (120) plans. If a plan considers types of devices and different manufacturers, each having different costs, then the whole planning process takes a long time to complete.
Although conventional design tools for storage area networks have proven to be useful, it would be desirable to present additional improvements. Currently, conventional storage area network planning tools do not have the capability to dynamically change the amount of plan information generated. For example, in some cases, the users only want to obtain a rough idea on the number of devices being used (i.e. they do not want storage configuration or fabric interconnectivity information), in other cases users want more detailed plan information. For example, when a vendor is proposing solutions at a customer site, a planning tool needs to quickly provide high-level information about cost. Subsequently, during a deployment phase, the planning tool needs to generate installation and configuration scripts.
There currently exists no method capable of generating additional plans (with low over-provisioning) that span across host, storage, and network layers, and ordering these generated plans according to one or more optimization criteria (such as cost, or power consumption or physical space). Furthermore, there is no planning tool currently available that allows a user to specify a high-level plan or a detailed plan, as needed. There are no planners that allow the users to specify the layer in which they would like to see a higher variety of plans. For example, in the integrated generated plans, the users would like to see more variety in the output plans with respect to the network layer, or the storage layer. What is therefore needed is a system, a computer program product, and an associated method for generating a multi-plan for a multi-layer storage area network. The need for such a solution has heretofore remained unsatisfied.